Community journalism
Encyclopedia
Community journalism is locally oriented, professional news coverage that typically focuses on city neighborhoods, individual suburbs or small towns, rather than metropolitan, state, national or world news.
If it covers wider topics, community journalism concentrates on the effect they have on local readers. Community newspaper
s, often but not always publish weekly
, and also tend to cover subjects larger news media do not. Some examples of topics are students on the honor roll at the local high school, school sports, crimes such as vandalism, zoning issues and other details of community life. Sometimes dismissed as "chicken dinner" stories, such "hyperlocal
" coverage often plays a vital role in building and maintaining neighborhoods.
Leo Lerner
, founder of Chicago
's erstwhile Lerner Newspapers
, used to say, "A fistfight on Clark Street is more important to our readers than a war in Europe."
An increasing number of community newspapers are now owned by large media organizations, although many rural papers are still "mom and pop" operations.
Community journalists are typically trained professional reporters and editors. Some specialized training programs have recently emerged at established undergraduate and graduate journalism programs. Community journalism should not be confused with the work of citizen journalists, who are often unpaid amateurs, or with civic journalism
, although many community newspapers practice that.
At the Emerging Mind of Community Journalism conference, participants created a list characterizing community journalism: community journalism is intimate, caring, and personal; it
reflects the community and tells its stories; and it embraces a leadership role.
In the United States, about 97% of newspapers are classified as "community" newspapers, with circulations below 50,000. Their combined circulation, nearly 109 million, is triple that of the combined circulation of the country's large daily newspapers.
Some philosophers encourage professional journalists to remain independent, whereas others insist on committing to local and generalized communities as a prerequisite for true citizenship. Some say community involvement is fine for editors and publishers, but not for the reporters who have the ability to “shape” the news. Critics say this involvement is a risk for anyone involved in producing the news.
Clifford Christians, co-author of Good News Social Ethics and the Press, urges journalists to realize that their publics may gravitate toward self-interest, and therefore the journalists should report stories that lessen the isolationism that comes from reading wider, world-based stories. A fundamental flaw in community journalism is the stubborn resistance to change and a compulsion to shape the system to maintain community standards.
Loyalty to a community is the inevitable price of acceptance, and the fee is creating sharp conflicts with allegiance to the truth. Through community journalism, attitudes about necessary information change from the need for a broad range of information (pluralism) to a reliance on information necessary to maintain community values and fortify the status quo (reinforcement).
Sooner or later group importance could transcend the value of distributing accurate information both internally to members of the group, and externally about the community or group.
Others think the switch toward community journalism is a natural reaction to our out-of-touch mega media. J. Herbert Altschull, writer of "A Crisis of Conscience: Is Community Journalism the Answer?" sees community journalism as a natural outgrowth from concerns of the media’s slippage in credibility and influence.
Editor, Lou Ureneck and Maine Council of Churches, Sarah Campbell. Their primary objective was to create study circles to dispel information to the public on the different perspectives on education:
This newspaper, as with many community journalism publications, has sole control over editorial content. The content itself is very important and relevant to Maine communities and revolves around “core value” choices, as determined by the community. The community journalist reporters were required to give readers a background on each perspective and to “write an expository rather than conventional he-said/she-said style.”
The publication ran more than 100 inches of factual reporting on education in Maine, as well as op-ed pieces promoting one of the four perspectives, and summary reports on the opposing viewpoint. The newspaper was received well, and, as a result, roughly 700 community members took part in the reader roundtables.
Virginia- The Virginian Pilot is a second example of a community newspaper. This publication sought to “show how the community works or could work” and to “portray democracy in the fullest sense of the word, whether in a council chamber or a cul-de-sac.”
Known as the Public Life Team, they meet with panels of citizens regularly to “tap their thoughts and dreams for the regions’ future.” Additionally, they have changed the perception of criminal sentencing from a polarized issue to one that rehabilitation advocates were in favor of. Finally, they opened a line of communication between various community members for the Hall Place neighborhood. “The Pilot got black and white residents to talk freely about the plan.” Without the assistance of the Pilot, the community would not have come to the conclusion that it “ought to be what was good for the city as a whole.”
This publication in particular has paved way for other community journalists, mainly due to its experimental nature and eagerness to give reporters the opportunity to brainstorm ideas together. Overall, the Pilot wants to improve the tone of public discourse in the Virginian community.
coming to the surface. These local bloggers and community members (many who have no journalism background) join together to write about and advocate for their community in an online forum. These blogs serve as watchdogs
to hold the public and other media outlets accountable for their actions. According to a Zogby International survey, 70% of Americans say journalism is important to maintaining community quality of life, and 67% say the traditional media are out of touch with what citizens want from their news.
Community blogs also provide a service to organizations that encourage civic engagement
. It give them a birds-eye-view of the happenings of the communities they affect without interjecting themselves into any one community.
Mobile news is important because participants “feel they can have an impact on their communities, more likely to use a variety of media platforms, feel more plugged into the media environment than they did a few years ago, and are more likely to use social media.”
Citizens can not only read news from their local community, with tablets and smart phones, they can also share and post links to stories, comment, or contribute themselves.
Survey
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project partnered with the Knight Foundation to conduct a national survey from January 12-25, 2011. They polled 2,251 adults over the age of 18 in both English and Spanish to “explore the role that cell phones and tablet computers play in people’s patterns of consuming and contributing to community information.
Results
84% of adult Americans own a cell phone and 47% of that population access local news and information on mobile devices, as it serves an immediate need.
However, those polled stated that topics like crime, community events, schools and education, and politics and cultural events are a fraction of topics sought after. In other words, citizens have not reached the point where they use mobile devices as a primary source to acquire community journalism-related subjects.
At their best, community newspapers affirm a sense of community through their publications. It emphasizes connectedness and "us-ness." It's covering school plays across four columns with pictures of the students large enough to see their faces. It's showing the community members that they, as individuals, matter.
content analysis of scholarship on
community and news media, community news media should (a) facilitate the process of negotiating
and making meaning about community and (b) reveal or ensure understanding
of community structure.
Community journalism would ideally reveal, or make individuals aware of, spaces, institutions,
resources, events, and ideas that may be shared, and encourage such sharing. The practice should also facilitate the process of negotiating and making meaning about a community
.
It is suggested that news media outlets do not choose to either practice community journalism exclusively or disregard it. Rather, media outlets generally engage in some degree of community journalism, as measured by the types of practices they follow and the intensity with which they follow them. A summated scale of multiple ordinal-level items would be an appropriate measure of community journalism. This is because community journalism is on a scale on which data is shown simply in order of magnitude since there is no standard of measurement of differences.
In addition, numerous studies in this analysis suggest that any scale measure of community journalism should accommodate the impact of the community’s power structure on news decisions and should address the need for inclusion of less powerful voices.
Media outlet content provides
If it covers wider topics, community journalism concentrates on the effect they have on local readers. Community newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s, often but not always publish weekly
Weekly newspaper
A weekly newspaper is a general-news publication that is published on newsprint once or twice a week.Such newspapers tend to have smaller circulations than daily newspapers, and are usually based in less-populous communities or small, defined areas within large cities; often, they may cover a...
, and also tend to cover subjects larger news media do not. Some examples of topics are students on the honor roll at the local high school, school sports, crimes such as vandalism, zoning issues and other details of community life. Sometimes dismissed as "chicken dinner" stories, such "hyperlocal
Hyperlocal
The term hyperlocal can be used as a noun in isolation or as a modifier of some other term . It connotes having the character of being oriented around a well defined, community scale area with primary focus being directed towards the concerns of its residents...
" coverage often plays a vital role in building and maintaining neighborhoods.
Leo Lerner
Leo Lerner
Leo A. Lerner was an American newspaper editor and publisher, who founded Lerner Newspapers in Chicago, Illinois, at one time the largest chain of weekly newspapers in the world....
, founder of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
's erstwhile Lerner Newspapers
Lerner Newspapers
Lerner Newspapers was once the largest chain of weekly newspapers in the world. Founded by Leo Lerner, the chain was a force in community journalism in Chicago from 1926 to 2005....
, used to say, "A fistfight on Clark Street is more important to our readers than a war in Europe."
An increasing number of community newspapers are now owned by large media organizations, although many rural papers are still "mom and pop" operations.
Community journalists are typically trained professional reporters and editors. Some specialized training programs have recently emerged at established undergraduate and graduate journalism programs. Community journalism should not be confused with the work of citizen journalists, who are often unpaid amateurs, or with civic journalism
Civic Journalism
The civic journalism movement is, according to professor David K. Perry of the University of Alabama, an attempt to abandon the notion that journalists and their audiences are spectators in political and social processes. In its place, the civic journalism movement seeks to treat readers and...
, although many community newspapers practice that.
At the Emerging Mind of Community Journalism conference, participants created a list characterizing community journalism: community journalism is intimate, caring, and personal; it
reflects the community and tells its stories; and it embraces a leadership role.
Figures
| As of 1995, there were the following community papers: | |
|
|
In the United States, about 97% of newspapers are classified as "community" newspapers, with circulations below 50,000. Their combined circulation, nearly 109 million, is triple that of the combined circulation of the country's large daily newspapers.
History
Community journalism got its name from a Montana editor, Ken Byerly, while he was a professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1957-71. Although the term is relatively new, Community journalism has been around since the founding fathers. He gave it its name because the concept had been referred to as “Hometown Newspapers,” which didn’t fit the suburban newspapers in that time. He chose community journalism because it fit both the weeklies and small dailies of the day.The journalism debate
Not everyone agrees on the implementation of community journalism into the news system. Traditionally, journalists advocate avoiding any real or perceived conflict of interests, which can be anything from refraining from joining community groups, to not pledging money to a candidate they support. Community journalism, however, encourages the coverage of news that hits close to home, even for the journalist covering the story.Some philosophers encourage professional journalists to remain independent, whereas others insist on committing to local and generalized communities as a prerequisite for true citizenship. Some say community involvement is fine for editors and publishers, but not for the reporters who have the ability to “shape” the news. Critics say this involvement is a risk for anyone involved in producing the news.
Clifford Christians, co-author of Good News Social Ethics and the Press, urges journalists to realize that their publics may gravitate toward self-interest, and therefore the journalists should report stories that lessen the isolationism that comes from reading wider, world-based stories. A fundamental flaw in community journalism is the stubborn resistance to change and a compulsion to shape the system to maintain community standards.
Loyalty to a community is the inevitable price of acceptance, and the fee is creating sharp conflicts with allegiance to the truth. Through community journalism, attitudes about necessary information change from the need for a broad range of information (pluralism) to a reliance on information necessary to maintain community values and fortify the status quo (reinforcement).
Sooner or later group importance could transcend the value of distributing accurate information both internally to members of the group, and externally about the community or group.
Others think the switch toward community journalism is a natural reaction to our out-of-touch mega media. J. Herbert Altschull, writer of "A Crisis of Conscience: Is Community Journalism the Answer?" sees community journalism as a natural outgrowth from concerns of the media’s slippage in credibility and influence.
Organizations
The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, which has 260 members in seven countries (U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand), encourages and promotes independent editorial comment, news content, and leadership in community newspapers throughout the world. Its purpose is to help those involved in the community press improve standards of editorial writing and news reporting and to encourage strong, independent editorial voices.Examples of Community Journalism
Portland, ME- A publication devoted solely to state education reform was created by Maine Sunday Telegram/Portland Press HeraldPortland Press Herald
The Portland Press Herald publish daily newspapers in Portland, Maine, USA...
Editor, Lou Ureneck and Maine Council of Churches, Sarah Campbell. Their primary objective was to create study circles to dispel information to the public on the different perspectives on education:
- To prepare one for a job
- To teach lifelong learning
- To develop good citizens
- To teach the basics
This newspaper, as with many community journalism publications, has sole control over editorial content. The content itself is very important and relevant to Maine communities and revolves around “core value” choices, as determined by the community. The community journalist reporters were required to give readers a background on each perspective and to “write an expository rather than conventional he-said/she-said style.”
The publication ran more than 100 inches of factual reporting on education in Maine, as well as op-ed pieces promoting one of the four perspectives, and summary reports on the opposing viewpoint. The newspaper was received well, and, as a result, roughly 700 community members took part in the reader roundtables.
Virginia- The Virginian Pilot is a second example of a community newspaper. This publication sought to “show how the community works or could work” and to “portray democracy in the fullest sense of the word, whether in a council chamber or a cul-de-sac.”
Known as the Public Life Team, they meet with panels of citizens regularly to “tap their thoughts and dreams for the regions’ future.” Additionally, they have changed the perception of criminal sentencing from a polarized issue to one that rehabilitation advocates were in favor of. Finally, they opened a line of communication between various community members for the Hall Place neighborhood. “The Pilot got black and white residents to talk freely about the plan.” Without the assistance of the Pilot, the community would not have come to the conclusion that it “ought to be what was good for the city as a whole.”
This publication in particular has paved way for other community journalists, mainly due to its experimental nature and eagerness to give reporters the opportunity to brainstorm ideas together. Overall, the Pilot wants to improve the tone of public discourse in the Virginian community.
Community blogging
There is a growing number of community blogsBlog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
coming to the surface. These local bloggers and community members (many who have no journalism background) join together to write about and advocate for their community in an online forum. These blogs serve as watchdogs
Watchdog journalism
Watchdog journalism aims to hold accountable public personalities and institutions, whose functions impact social and political life. The term "lapdog journalism", for journalism biased in favour of personalities and institutions, is sometimes used as a conceptual opposite to watchdog...
to hold the public and other media outlets accountable for their actions. According to a Zogby International survey, 70% of Americans say journalism is important to maintaining community quality of life, and 67% say the traditional media are out of touch with what citizens want from their news.
Community blogs also provide a service to organizations that encourage civic engagement
Civic engagement
Civic engagement or civic participation has been defined as "Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern."-Forms:...
. It give them a birds-eye-view of the happenings of the communities they affect without interjecting themselves into any one community.
Emergence of Mobile News
According to the State of the News Media: An Annual Report on American Journalism, nearly half of all American adults (47%) report that they get at least some local news and information on their cell phone or tablet computer. They are interested in obtaining news that is practical and in real time and fall under the demographic of higher socioeconomic status, younger, newer residents, reside in non-rural areas, and parent minor children.Mobile news is important because participants “feel they can have an impact on their communities, more likely to use a variety of media platforms, feel more plugged into the media environment than they did a few years ago, and are more likely to use social media.”
Citizens can not only read news from their local community, with tablets and smart phones, they can also share and post links to stories, comment, or contribute themselves.
Survey
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project partnered with the Knight Foundation to conduct a national survey from January 12-25, 2011. They polled 2,251 adults over the age of 18 in both English and Spanish to “explore the role that cell phones and tablet computers play in people’s patterns of consuming and contributing to community information.
Results
84% of adult Americans own a cell phone and 47% of that population access local news and information on mobile devices, as it serves an immediate need.
However, those polled stated that topics like crime, community events, schools and education, and politics and cultural events are a fraction of topics sought after. In other words, citizens have not reached the point where they use mobile devices as a primary source to acquire community journalism-related subjects.
Purpose
Community newspapers throw most of their weight behind supplying local coverage and making national and international news stories relate by finding a significant local angle. They embrace their civil role by promoting the general welfare of the community. The finest community newspapers recognize and accept this covenant with their towns: that they are key stakeholders and players in the forces that help build and celebrate their communities. Community journalism is a serious effort to return to the reputation journalism once had, and to restore the role of the press to its original purpose—that is, to serve as a breeding place for ideas and opinions.At their best, community newspapers affirm a sense of community through their publications. It emphasizes connectedness and "us-ness." It's covering school plays across four columns with pictures of the students large enough to see their faces. It's showing the community members that they, as individuals, matter.
Measurement
Through a qualitative and quantitativeNumerical data
Numerical data is data measured or identified on a numerical scale. Numerical data can be analyzed using statistical methods, and results can be displayed using tables, charts, histograms and graphs. For example, a researcher will ask a questions to a participant that include words how often, how...
content analysis of scholarship on
community and news media, community news media should (a) facilitate the process of negotiating
and making meaning about community and (b) reveal or ensure understanding
of community structure.
Community journalism would ideally reveal, or make individuals aware of, spaces, institutions,
resources, events, and ideas that may be shared, and encourage such sharing. The practice should also facilitate the process of negotiating and making meaning about a community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
.
It is suggested that news media outlets do not choose to either practice community journalism exclusively or disregard it. Rather, media outlets generally engage in some degree of community journalism, as measured by the types of practices they follow and the intensity with which they follow them. A summated scale of multiple ordinal-level items would be an appropriate measure of community journalism. This is because community journalism is on a scale on which data is shown simply in order of magnitude since there is no standard of measurement of differences.
In addition, numerous studies in this analysis suggest that any scale measure of community journalism should accommodate the impact of the community’s power structure on news decisions and should address the need for inclusion of less powerful voices.
Criteria for community journalism
One way to measure the degree to which news outlets reveal community structure is the following list:Media outlet content provides
- Communities with contact information for community leaders, officials, experts, and community organizations.
- Information from community leaders, officials, experts, and community organizations that is usable and relevant to community members.
- Information on community services and institutions.
- Information so that communities understand how to use services and institutions.
- Information on clubs and organizations.
- Information that helps communities understand how to get involved with local or relevant clubs and organizations.
- Information that helps communities take advantage of local or relevant events and festivities.
See also
- Creative nonfictionCreative nonfictionCreative nonfiction is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service...
- History of journalismHistory of journalismThe history of journalism, or the development of the gathering and transmitting of news, spans the growth of technology and trade, marked by the advent of specialized techniques for gathering and disseminating information on a regular basis that has caused, as one history of journalism surmises,...
- History of American newspapersHistory of American newspapersThe history of American newspapers goes back to the 17th century with the publication of the first colonial newspapers.-Colonial period:-The New England Courant:...
- JournalismJournalismJournalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
- Journalism ethics and standardsJournalism ethics and standardsJournalism ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by journalists. Historically and currently, this subset of media ethics is widely known to journalists as their professional "code of ethics" or the "canons of journalism"...
- Journalism education and Journalism schoolJournalism schoolA journalism school is a school or department, usually part of an established university, where journalists are trained. An increasingly used term for a journalism department, school or college is 'J-School'...
- Journalism genresJournalism genresThe term "journalism genres" refers to various journalism styles, fields or separate genres, in writing accounts of events.Newspapers and periodicals often contain features written by journalists, many of whom specialize in this form of in-depth journalistic writing.Feature articles are usually...
- Non-profit journalismNon-profit journalismNon-profit journalism is the practice of journalism as a non-profit organization instead of a for-profit business. NPJ groups are able to operate and serve the public good without the concern of debt, dividends and the need to make a profit...
- Objectivity (journalism)Objectivity (journalism)Parent article: Journalism ethics and standardsObjectivity is a significant principle of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity can refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these qualities.- Definitions :In the context...
- Yellow journalismYellow journalismYellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism...
External links
- Citizen Journalism page on FacebookFacebookFacebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...